


Under a Starlit Sky

by fredbassett



Category: Primeval
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21514939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: Abby is trapped in the past, but can she trust her only companion?
Relationships: Helen Cutter/Abby Maitland
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Under a Starlit Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cordeliadelayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/gifts).



“Don’t you trust me?”

The question came out of nowhere and the suddenness of it, after a long evening of silence spent eating small rodents baked in clay and staring into the camp fire, made Abby jump.

She looked up and met Helen’s amused stare, refusing to let her feelings betray her. She wouldn’t plead for reassurance, she bloody well wouldn’t.

“Not really, no.” The answer had slipped from her lips before she’d had the chance to bite it back.

Helen laughed. “What do I have to do to convince you that I’m not a threat?”

“Get me home. That’d be a good start.”

“I’ve already told you, the anomaly we need isn’t due to open for at least another two days.”

Another two days of gourmet cooking and Helen Cutter’s enigmatic company. That would teach her not to ignore warnings that anomalies were about to close, but she’d seen the stricken look on Connor’s face when he’d realised that the chain holding his precious ring had snapped during their mad scramble back uphill. She’d turned around without stopping to think, her eyes raking the hard ground. A glint of gold in the sunlight on the broken rock of the hillside had drawn her attention and she’d hurled herself back down the slope.

Her fingers had closed around the ring at exactly the same moment that the anomaly had winked out of existence, leaving her stranded under an uncaring Permian sky.

She’d sunk to her knees, trying to will the anomaly back into existence, and had still been there, staring at the same spot, at least two hours later when Helen Cutter had found her.

The first anomaly they’d travelled through together had led into an even drier, desert-like world where they had remained for a seemingly endless day in which sand had insinuated its way into every crevice she’d possessed. They’d existed on the two bottles of water in Helen’s pack until they’d stumbled through another anomaly into a greener, damper world that had yielded fresh water to drink, a shady pool in which to wash the sand from their bodies, and meat and fish to eat.

Helen had proved remarkably adept at spearing fish with a pointed stick and catching small mammals in snares, then dispatching them swiftly and painlessly. Abby presumed she’d had a lot of practice in such things in the last eight years.

They hadn’t talked much, but Abby had come to admire Helen’s quiet competence and no-nonsense manner. The older woman had proved to be an undemanding companion but Abby was wary of getting too close to her. She’d had first-hand experience of Helen’s games, one of which had led to the death of a good friend of Connor’s.

“I didn’t know the dodos carried a parasite.”

Abby’s head jerked up and a hot blush rose up her cheeks. Was the bloody woman a mind-reader as well?

“It was a good guess,” Helen said, with an airy wave of her hand. “But when you’ve seen as much death as I have, Abby, the fate of one human being really doesn’t matter.”

“Then what does?” Abby snapped, throwing another handful of dried pine cones onto the fire and watching the sparks dance upwards like a myriad fireflies shining in the darkness.

“The earth, Abby, not the upstart creatures who walk, swim and fly on its surface, but the earth itself. Its inhabitants are transitory, all of them, homo sapiens included and, if you continue to work with the anomalies, you’ll come to understand that. But if it’s any consolation, life always finds a way. And I think it always will.”

“And what’s your part in all of this, Helen?”

The other woman stretched, cat-like, in the darkness, pulling up her khaki shirt to scratch at an insect bite on her belly. “I haven’t decided yet.”

A slight shiver ran up Abby’s spine and she hugged her knees. She wasn’t sure what it would take to turn Helen Cutter from a dispassionate observer into an involved participant, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Cold?”

Abby ignored the question and continued staring into the fire. What she wanted more than anything right then was for someone to put their arms around her and tell her it was going to be all right and that she really was going to get home again, but that wish had about as much chance of coming true as she had of sprouting wings and flying.

A moment later, Helen got up from her place by the fire, pulled a battered jacket from her pack and draped it around Abby’s shoulders before moving off into the dense ferns that surrounded their camping place to answer a call of nature. When the older woman returned she settled down at Abby’s side on the palm leaves they’d spread out on the dusty ground.

The fire burned brightly and the heat warmed Abby’s face but not her back and another shiver shook through her. Without speaking, Helen shifted position behind her and pulled Abby back against the warmth of her chest. For a moment Abby considered shaking her off and retreating into her own personal space on the other side of the fire, but the knowledge that they were the only two human beings alive in this world weighed more heavily on her than she would have believed and right now she didn’t really care too much about Helen Cutter’s motives. What mattered was simply that she was here, that Helen hadn’t abandoned her.

She leaned back in Helen’s arms and stared up at a velvet black sky that was shining with countless stars arranged into constellations that she didn’t recognise. She had never felt so far away from home in her life, and if she ever saw the inside of her flat again she swore she wouldn’t ever complain about Connor leaving his dirty boxer shorts on the bathroom floor. Her fingers sought out the small gold band safely zipped into a pocket of her trousers and tears pricked at the back of her eyelids.

The rhythmic rise and fall of Helen’s breathing at her back was as comforting as the arms looped casually around her waist. She stared down in the dim light of the fire at the other woman’s long-fingered hands and short-cut nails. Helen’s skin was tanned a deep brown by the wind and sun of countless ages of the world, criss-crossed by small scars and the pin-prick bites of the black sand-flies that had nearly driven them demented the previous day. She wondered absently if Helen had ever bothered with nail-varnish in her life.

She wasn’t entirely surprised when one of Helen’s hands moved up to cup one of her breasts through the thin material of her teeshirt, but all Abby did was to continue to stare into the fire, making no move away from – or into – the other woman’s touch.

Helen pinched lightly at her nipple, sending a jolt of pleasure deep into Abby’s body. A moment later, Helen brought her other hand into play as well on Abby’s other breast. Neither of them spoke a word, or even acknowledged that the contact was taking place.

Abby wondered what Helen’s hands would feel like on her skin and, as if answering her unspoken question, Helen deftly slipped one hand under Abby’s teeshirt, pushed up the thin lace of her bra and continued the actions of her fingertips direct on Abby’s sensitised nipples, tweaking first one, then the other, rolling them between her fingertips. Helen’s fingers felt dry and slightly rough, almost exactly as she had expected them to be.

One hand dipped lower and flipped open the button on her trousers before sliding down the zip. Abby felt more like an observer than a participant in this encounter. Helen seemed to ask nothing in return, not even an acknowledgment that Abby was finding pleasure in her touch.

She felt a brief flicker of disappointment when Helen’s hand returned again to cup her breast, rather than continuing its previous exploration. She wondered if it was Helen’s intention to make her beg and, if it was, she wondered what her own reaction would be.

Just when Abby was considering taking hold of one of the long-fingered hands and guiding it downwards, Helen took the game to a new level. She trailed one hand slowly over the flat plain of Abby’s stomach to stroke through the tangle of her pubic hair before dipping those rough fingertips between her legs, sending a sudden flush of pleasure singing through Abby’s nerve-endings.

Helen dipped her index finger into Abby’s wet folds then used it to rub small circles lightly over Abby’s clit, just the way she liked. Unlike most men of Abby’s acquaintance, Helen appeared to be in no hurry. One hand continued to stroke over Abby’s breasts while the other worked insistently between her legs. Abby closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax in Helen’s embrace and, unconsciously, her breathing slipped into the same gentle rhythm. Their chests rose and fell together as pleasure started to build slowly and inexorably in Abby’s body. Helen’s fingertips paused occasionally in their work to dip deeper into her, gather more moisture to slick her movements over and around the small nub of Abby’s flesh.

Abby’s thighs were starting to quiver, and with a small sigh of pleasure she let her knees fall apart, allowing Helen even greater access with her fingers. Her companion kept up the pressure on Abby’s clit whilst at the same time pressing two fingers into her body. When a warm mouth started to suck on her earlobe, Abby couldn’t remain quiet or still any longer. With a quiet gasp she started to fuck herself on Helen’s fingers, rocking her hips backwards and forwards, as she arched her back, feeling Helen’s fingers inside her and on her breasts, rubbing, circling, thrusting.

Abby felt molten heat pool in her belly, igniting a small spark deep inside her that Helen soon fanned into flame. She jerked like a marionette at the onset of her orgasm, the way she always did, and Helen, unlike any man Abby had ever been with, knew exactly when to back off and simply hold her, letting the tremors run through her body and the tears course down her cheeks.

Helen kissed the tears from her cheeks, straightened Abby’s clothing and continued to hold her under a starlit sky, asking nothing in return, until Abby finally fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

And two days later, true to her word, she returned Abby to her own time, but before Abby could even think of thanking her, Helen had melted away into the shadows of evening as though she’d never existed.

Abby’s hand closed around the ring in her pocket for a moment before she pulled out her mobile phone.

“Connor? Yeah, it’s me. I’m back.”

She stared up at a darkening sky and knew that there would be no stars shining brightly for her tonight. The world was populated with millions of people, too numerous to count, and yet Abby still felt alone.


End file.
